There was a coach of a Southern college who tried to put over a new one on me, when I caught him coaching from the side lines in a game with Pennsylvania on Franklin Field.  I first warned him, and when he persisted in the offense, I put him behind the ropes, on a bench, besides imposing the regular penalty.  It was not long after this, that I discovered he had left the bench.  I found him again on the side line, wearing a heavy ulster and change of hat to disguise himself, but this quick change artist promptly got the gate.

I knew a player who had an opportunity to get back at an official, but there was no rule to meet the situation.  A penalty had been imposed, because the player had used improper language.  A heated argument followed, and I am afraid the Umpire was guilty of a like offense, when the player exclaimed: 

“Well!  Well!  Why don’t you penalize yourself?”

He surely was right.  I should have been penalized.

One sometimes unconsciously fails to deal out a kindness for a courtesy done.  That was my experience in a Harvard-Yale game at Cambridge one year.  On the morning before the game, while I was at the Hotel Touraine, I was making an earnest effort to get, what seemed almost impossible, a seat for a friend of mine.  I had finally purchased one for ten dollars, and so made known the fact to two or three of my friends in the corridor.  About this time a tall, athletic, chap, who had heard that I wanted an extra ticket, volunteered to get me one at the regular price, which he succeeded in doing.  I had no difficulty in returning my speculator’s ticket.  I thanked the fellow cordially for getting me the ticket.  I did not see him again until late that afternoon when the game was nearly over.  Some rough work in one of the scrimmages compelled me to withdraw one of the Harvard players from the game.  As I walked with him to the side lines, I glanced at his face, only to recognize my friend—­the ticket producer.  The umpire’s task then became harder than ever, as I gave him a seat on the side line.  That player was Vic Kennard.

Evarts Wrenn, one of our foremost officials a few years ago, has had some interesting experiences of his own.

“While umpiring a game between Michigan and Ohio State, at Columbus,” he says, “Heston, Michigan’s fullback, carrying the ball, broke through the line, was tackled and thrown; recovered his feet, started again, was tackled and thrown again, threw off his tacklers only to be thrown again.  Again he broke away.  All this time I was backing up in front of the play.  As Heston broke away from the last tacklers, I backed suddenly into the outstretched arms of the Ohio State fullback, who, it appears, had been backing up step by step with me.  Heston ran thirty yards for a touchdown.  You can imagine how unpopular I was with the home team, and how ridiculous my plight appeared.

“Another instance occurred in a Chicago-Cornell game at Marshall Field,” Wrenn goes on to say.  “You know it always seems good to an official to get through a game without having to make any disagreeable decisions.  I was congratulating myself on having got through this game so fortunately.  As I was hurrying off the field, I was stopped by the little Cornell trainer, who had been very much in evidence on the side lines during the game.  He called to me.